CHICAGO -- Iraqi doctors were forced to cut off ears, falsify reports on torture and participate in other human rights abuses during Saddam Hussein's regime, a survey of physicians there found.

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About half the respondents said they believed other Iraqi physicians were frequently forced to amputate ears as punishment and falsify medical reports. Seventeen percent said they believed doctors were frequently forced to remove organs from dead and living patients without consent.

About 70 percent of the doctors surveyed said they thought torture in general had been an extreme problem in Iraq.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Amer al-Khuzaie, deputy health minister in Baghdad, said Saddam Hussein "tried everything to terrorize the Iraqi people, and he used mean and brutal methods to oppress the people. One of these methods was the use of doctors to cut ears and tongues of opponents and army deserters, and other illegal and unethical practices."

"The aim of doctors is to end the suffering, but in Saddam's time, the opposite happened," al-Khuzaie said. "Most of the doctors conducted such practices under threat, and they feared for their personal safety. Doctors who refused to do such things were imprisoned or tortured."

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